Saturday, 28 April 2007

The telescope was big. Bigger than the whole Earth. Bigger than our Solar System. Bigger even than the whole Milky Way galaxy!

This image uses an entire cluster of galaxies as a massive gravitational lens, that bends light so as to magnify the even more distant galaxies and quasar beyond it.

The image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope with 16 hours of exposure time, and was released on May 23, 2006. The cluster that forms the lens is at a distance of 7 billion light years; and the quasar is at about 10 billion light years. As is always the case with a gravitational lens, there are multiple images visible of the same magnified galaxies. This was the first ever case where a lens gave five images of the same quasar.

One of the galaxies which is being distorted into an arc by the lens is at a distance of about 12 billion light years. The whole image is about 2 arcminutes wide. To put that in perspective, the full moon is roughly 30 arcminutes across. Under conventional cosmological models, this kind of image gives a view of the universe when it was something like 10% to 15% of its current age.

Duae Quartunciae

About me

I've been active on the internet for many years in various guises. My real name is Chris Ho-Stuart, but I usually leave that for personal life off-line.
I use the pen-name "Sylas" on discussion boards; in particular Climate Physics Forums. I am also regular at Physics Forums.
I have a background in maths and computer science, and a long standing interest in science, especially where there is a public misunderstanding or rejection of basic discoveries we have made about the natural world.
I've been active in the creationism wars, and at present I am particularly interested in climate science.
I have recently started the Climate Physics Forums bulletin board as a way to help enable a safe and substantive space for discussion of climate science; I've given it here as my home page.